Demons
by Jaysca101
Summary: Pensive musings of Severus on a cold winter night as he drinks. Unbeta-ed.


_"It's a damned cold tonight. Should pour myself a bit of Firewhiskey to warm myself up… Get the fire going too, to warm up this place since warming charms aren't doing much today." Severus sat in his favourite chair near the fire and began to lose himself in an internal dialogue as he watched the fire, enjoying the warmth that the whiskey brought._

Sometimes watching flames dance can be a funny thing at times. They can bring about memories or thoughts that have embedded themselves far into the very fibre of your being. When you've lived through enough attempts on your life as I have, self-inflicted or otherwise, you begin to understand and appreciate the fragility of human life. You also learn that lesson through the acts of killing and torture. There is a muted horror and fascination in realising how many times it has happened. After being in many precarious situations as I have, I find there's certain dullness in the thought of dying. I will quietly and willingly welcome it after leading this life fraught with demons and hardships. Over the years, I have learned to cope with these demons that continually gnaw at me without rest. I am no saint, nor will I ever be. I am no saviour or hero of any kind nor do I wish to be lauded as such. The demons I have acquired in my years of being a spy were a necessary evil. There was a willingness to sacrifice myself. Besides, it was the grave I had made for myself and I had to lie in it.

With my first killing, with shame I will admit there was a sick and perverse glee in it. It was a group of young adults, possibly the same age as I was at the time. We fed off their terror and their helplessness. They couldn't defend themselves as they had no proper means to. The forest they ran into was littered with the men in our attack squad. They never had a chance. After that, we celebrated by desecrating their bodies by severing their heads and placing them on pikes for the world to discover in horror. The drunken, vicious glee on the others' faces is something I will not forget for the rest of my life. By the time I had returned to my quarters, I remember kneeling in front of the toilet, emptying the contents of my stomach. I couldn't handle the reality of what I had done. It was the first time my hands were stained with blood.

At times, when I look at my hands, I can still see the crimson blood of all those I've killed or tortured. There have been sleepless nights and I became dependent on sleep aids. Every time I close my eyes, I can hear them crying and begging for mercy. It's a faint sound now, faraway, like a whisper. I am by no means convincing you or myself that it gets easier each time. It doesn't.

The same experience happened with my first torture. I became despondent and disconnected. I was in my early twenties, merely but a child. For a few years, it went like that, murder, torture and desecration, but when it escalated to rape, it grew. The first time I was piss drunk, so my recollection of the trauma is still somewhat hazy. I had refused to participate in the raping until I had been coerced into it. I found it easier to be sloshed out of my mind for the act and had convinced myself that it was all for the sake of deception. It didn't work. She screamed in pain, begging us to stop. Her clothes were torn from her body and her naked body was bruised and battered. Her ankles were twisted purposefully so she couldn't run and the bones in her arm shattered so that the possibility of her crawling away was out of question. At the end of the ordeal, she was murdered and mutilated beyond recognition. They burned her body into ashes. Her tear stained face is one of the indelible, recurring faces that haunt me every night.

There was no respect for the dead in their bloodlust.

I had taken to smoking and drinking and soon, I found myself falling into the habit of self-harm. It was as if I was possessed. Each time I'd look at the snake and skull adorning my arm, the urge to carve it out would fill me. If you look closely, my arm is marred with the gashes from over the years. Each time thin rivulets of blood trickled down my arm, it became proof of the punishment I was giving myself. Proof that I was in some small twisted part; I was paying for my crimes. It was difficult to stop the cutting but I managed. It now serves as a reminder that I have lived through it and what means to my personal history.

The attempts on my life were not easy to live through either. Since I was affiliated with the Death Eaters and its notoriety, I've had to live through numerous attempts to poison on me or kill me through some other manner. Poison was usually the most ineffective method given my profession of Potion Master. The calculated attempts never discriminated between ally and enemy. From being attacked in the war in many different forms, I have developed a subtle paranoia requiring constant vigilance. Moody was off his rocker, but the points he repeated time after weary time were very much valid. The thought of Moody brings back unpleasant memories of the Aurors during that last stretch of the war. They were under directives to bring back any Death Eaters any way they can as long as they were still alive. Many were still under the impression that I was loyal to Voldemort even though by then it was common knowledge I was no real threat to the side of the Light.

The fragility of life is something I've come to understand very well but I've also come to understand its resiliency under times of duress. The human body and can take so much before it breaks down completely. As morbid as it may sound; there is a definite beauty in being able to withstand the pain we do. I cannot deny that. We have this inherent tendency to think that we're so fragile so we guard ourselves, but surprisingly, with purpose, we can endure.

My thoughts are circling now due to the firewhiskey. The echoes of my past will never stop chasing after me, but I have this hope that there will be someone to walk with me to make the journey less agonising.

 _"This one is to another day of not having died and not being a maudlin fool," Severus muttered as he downed the last of his drink. He doused the fire and ventured off to bed. He knew what the night would bring, but it was a normalised experience and was comforted by a promise of that this new chapter of his life would not bring about the inhuman horrors he lived through._


End file.
